Employment figures released earlier this week by the state Department of Commerce show that the number of people employed in North Carolina increased by a total of 85,879 throughout 2017, while the number of people unemployed decreased by 20,263 over the same year-long period.

The employment growth data follows a positive revenue outlook released by the state legislature’s nonpartisan Fiscal Research Division in January that shows tax collections on track and an economy in a stable growth pattern.

“The General Assembly kept a commitment to North Carolina families to put their needs first,” said House Speaker Tim Moore. “The result is sustained economic success and a state on solid financial footing. It’s more good news that tens of thousands of new jobs opened across North Carolina over the last year. We will maintain our proven approach to building a state economy that benefits working people and businesses.”

The North Carolina General Assembly enacted historic tax relief this decade to save state taxpayers billions of dollars, encourage economic growth and spur job creation.

Since 2011 the General Assembly has levied a lower sales tax rate, income tax rate and corporate tax rate on North Carolina families and businesses, while raising the standard deduction for low-income earners.

Legislation passed unanimously during the long session makes it a serious crime to destroy or intentionally damage emergency equipment used by first responders.

House Bill 98 automatically imposes a Class 1 misdemeanor charge on someone if they intentionally injure, destroy, remove, vandalize, tamper with, or interfere with machinery, equipment, or vehicles of a local fire department or the North Carolina Forest Service that’s used for fighting fires, protecting property, or protecting human life, like ambulances and other EMS vehicles.

State law already made it illegal to willfully damage another person’s personal property. If the dollar value is under $200, the perpetrator would be guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor and if the dollar value of the damage is more than that, the charge becomes a more severe Class 1 misdemeanor.

One may recall that in 2015, CNN reported that rioters in Baltimore, MD, looted, ransacked, and set fire to a drug store, and then sabotaged the efforts of responding firefighters by cutting holes in the fire hoses.

According to Thom Goolsby, a former state senator and practicing criminal defense attorney, a misdemeanor “is a criminal violation of the law punishable by no more than six months in jail. Misdemeanors are divided into four categories (A1, 1, 2, and 3), depending on the seriousness of the offense. These cases usually result in detention in the county jail, a fine and/or community service. Possession of drug paraphernalia, DWI and disorderly conduct are examples of misdemeanors.”

In FY 2015-16, 31% of Class 1 misdemeanor offenders received active sentences and 69% received probation; active misdemeanor sentences of less than 180 days are served in local jails and do not require any post-release supervision. The average length of probation imposed for Class I Misdemeanors was 15 months.

A law passed unanimously during the long session adds a new section to the North Carolina Driver’s Handbook. House Bill 21 requires that the 2018 edition of the handbook issued by the DMV include a description of traffic stop procedures and a set of tips for drivers on how best to interact with the police during routine stops.

The law also requires the Department of Public Instruction to incorporate these topics into the driver education curriculum offered at public high schools, beginning this school year.

Advocates say the proposed changes to driver education materials will help reduce violent or deadly encounters between motorists and officers.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics says a traffic stop is the most common reason for contact with the police. Knowing what to expect and how to respond during a traffic stop can help the driver and the officer feel more at ease in what could otherwise be a stressful and even dangerous situation.

“It’s just a public safety issue,” bill sponsor Rep. John Faircloth told the Charlotte Observer. “I think all of us want to do anything we can to make the public safer out there, and to not put our officers in a situation where they might make the wrong decision.”

Driver education materials in the future could include some of these recommendations from AAA on what to do and what not to do during a traffic stop:

Follow the officer’s instructions, slow down, use your turning signals and pull your vehicle well off to the side of the road when being stopped;

Stay in your vehicle and turn off the engine and radio;

Keep your seatbelt fastened until the officer has seen you wearing it.Take a deep breath and don’t panic. Remain calm while the officer explains why you were stopped;

Turn on your interior lights or dome light if stopped at night;

Be on your best behavior, and always be polite to the officer. Don’t be argumentative;

Cooperate with the police. It could make all the difference between a ticket and a warning;

Be honest with the officer. If you really didn’t see the stop sign, or were unaware of the speed limit, let the officer know;

Keep hands in plain view of the officer. Avoid reaching or making sudden movements. Never reach under your seat;

Avoid provoking the officer or showing off in front of other occupants;

Always carry proper identification: a valid driver’s license, proof of vehicle registration and current proof of insurance. Do not retrieve or reach for documentation until instructed;

If you are asked to exit the vehicle, do it slowly; and

If you receive a traffic citation or ticket, accept it calmly. Contest the traffic citation in a court of law.

Legislatures in Louisiana and Texas also passed legislation this year requiring police stops to be part of driver education. Texas’ new law goes a step further than the others by requiring traffic stops to be part of police training and public high school coursework. The curriculum must include the duties of police, the rights of the public, the proper actions for civilians and officers, how to file a complaint and more.

Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island have also considered bills.

In 2016, Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner signed legislation requiring driving schools to teach students how to react when stopped by the police, and the 2017 Illinois Rules of the Road handbook contains a new section entitled “Being Pulled Over by Law Enforcement.”

A healthcare bill passed unanimously during the long session creates additional protections for people covered by health benefit plans. The bill also contains protections designed to help smaller pharmacies compete with large pharmaceutical companies.

“This bill will assist independent pharmacies by allowing them to provide more information to their patients regarding the amount of the insured’s cost share for a prescription drug,” said Representative Brenden Jones, the legislation’s primary sponsor. “Pharmacists will also now be permitted to sell lower-cost alternative drugs to consumers. Overall, the aim of this bill is to provide a more level playing field for small businesses which play such a vital role in our economy.”1

Prohibits Pharmacy Benefits Managers from charging insureds a co-pay that is greater than the total submitted charges by an in-network pharmacy; and

Allows Pharmacy Benefits Managers to charge pharmacies a fee for costs related to claim adjudication only if the fee was set out in a contract or reported on the remittance advice of the claim.

The role of the Pharmacy Benefits Manager (PBM) resulted from the passage in 2003 of the Medicare Modernization Act and the creation of Medicare Part D, which offered new prescription drugs benefits. Medicare Part D created the need for a middleman between the insurer and the pharmacy. PBMs identify eligible patients, negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical manufacturers, and reduce the administrative burden on the benefits provider.

PBMs create a list of medicines covered by a given benefit plan, called formularies, and press for discounts on the manufacturer’s price in order to include their prescription drugs on their lists. Unless a prescribed medicine is included in formularies, insurers won’t cover it and physicians won’t prescribe it — giving PBMs more leverage for negotiating prices.

The Pharmacy Patient Fair Practices Act was signed into law in July and applies to contracts entered into, renewed, or amended as of October 1, 2017.

North Carolina will send a statue of the late Reverend Billy Graham to represent our state in the United States Capitol in Washington, DC. The collection of 100 statues honors two notable people from each of the 50 states.

House Bill 540, passed overwhelmingly by the General Assembly in 2015, authorizes that a statue of Reverend Graham be sent to the National Statuary Hall Collection. The language of the legislation reminds us that “there have been many great North Carolinians, but few have impacted the world more than Billy Graham.”

Reverend Graham died Wednesday morning at age 99, after many years of declining health.

The statue of Reverend Graham will replace the current statue of Charles Brantley Aycock, a former Democrat governor and white supremacist leader. 28 legislators, all House Democrats, voted against replacing the statue of the notorious Aycock with a new one of the Reverend Graham.

The National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol Building is comprised of statues donated by each state; the subject of the statue must be a deceased person who was a citizen of the United States and is illustrious for historic renown or for distinguished civic or military service. Statues may represent only one individual.

The entire collection in the Capitol Building now consists of 100 statues contributed by 50 states, with each state contributing two statues. The second of North Carolina’s two statues is of Zebulon Baird Vance (1830-1894), a Confederate military officer in the Civil War and also a former Democrat governor. (Historical note: Vance was succeeded by William Woods Holden, North Carolina’s first Republican governor. The Republican Party was created to end slavery, and Holden went to great lengths while in office to combat the evils of the Ku Klux Klan. This enraged members of the Democrat Party, who removed Holden from office in retaliation after they regained control of the state legislature. To date, Holden is the only North Carolina governor to have been impeached.)

The process for putting a statue or a replacement in the collection is a formal one and requires state legislatures to pass a resolution and then establishing a seven-member Statuary Hall Selection Committee for this purpose. The committee must identify a method of obtaining the necessary funds needed to pay for:

The sculptor for designing and carving or casting the statue;

The design and fabrication of the pedestal;

The transportation of the statue and pedestal to the United States Capitol;

The removal and transportation of the replaced statue;

The temporary placement of the new statue in the Rotunda of the Capitol for the unveiling ceremony;

The State must arrange the program for an unveiling ceremony with the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, who will ensure that congressional participation is bipartisan and bicameral.

Reverend Graham’s remains will lie in honor at the capitol rotunda next Wednesday and Thursday, “in recognition of Reverend Graham’s long and distinguished service to the nation.” Only 31 people have been so honored over the course of our nation’s 242 year history, including such distinguished Americans as presidents Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan. Reverend Graham will be only the fourth private citizen ever to share this extraordinary honor.

The Reverend Billy Graham died just before 8am this morning. He was 99 years old.

Born on November 7, 1918 in Charlotte, William F. Graham was of Scottish descent, the son of William Franklin and Morrow Coffey Graham. The Grahams were dairy farmers, and young Billy was reared on their farm approximately four miles from the current location of the Graham Library. The Grahams attended the local Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.

In 1933, when Prohibition ended, Graham’s father forced him and his sister Katherine to drink beer until they became sick…both avoided alcohol and drugs for the rest of their lives, according to his autobiography. Because he was “too worldly,” Graham was declined membership in a local youth group and was persuaded to visit Mordecai Ham, an evangelist. During Ham’s revival meetings in Charlotte, Graham was converted in 1934 at age 16.

Graduating from Sharon High School in 1936, Graham then attended Bob Jones College, located then in Cleveland, Tennessee, but he found it too legalistic in both coursework and rules. So he transferred to the Florida Bible Institute (now Trinity College) where he graduated in 1940. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois in 1943, the same year he married the former Ruth McCue Bell.

Born from Presbyterian parents, Ruth’s missionary childhood in China ended when she went with her parents on furlough to Montreat, North Carolina, a quiet scenic village near Asheville. She finished high school there and then enrolled in Wheaton College where she met, “The Preacher,” a nickname given her future husband by their classmates.(more…)